Guy talks about TBK

Just a place to put my thoughts about my favorite book ever. I'll try to be as serious as possible but there's going to be shitposting as well because after all I am nothing but a jester.

[karamazovposting]

Basic info about me and this blog

This is a not spoiler free side blog I made because I needed a place to ramble and reblog things about The Brothers Karamazov without clogging my main because I am soo normal about it (lie)

my pronouns are he/him, I'm twenty-five and I don't go by any names on any social media but I just use Guy for this side blog because it's short for my main's username

Self-proclaimed CEO of the bipolar Ivan Karamazov agenda because I have that disorder myself and I think his character makes an awful lot of sense if seen as having it too

Lots of long literary analysis posts, so beware

BUT I'm not a literature student or a philosophy student or a theology student or anything like that, I'm just clinically insane

My DMs and asks are always open and don't be afraid to share your takes in my replies or reblogs

People I block on sight: radfems (yes any kind of radfem including rad leaning/adjacent, I don't care) and any other kind of transphobes, bigots/right-wingers, people who support and justify the bombing and killing of Palestinians and/or any other group that is facing genocide, people who support the oppression of any other oppressed group in general; fuck off, you're not welcome here and you wouldn't like my queer leftist ass anyway

Check #pinned for ulterior relevant information

[beanstalks0x0]

Happy Pride Month!! :D

[russian-blob]

One of my favourite less-popular (maybe?) TBK characters is Katerina Ivanovna. Not only because of the ship (tho in some way it is because of the ship), but also because she's deeply flawed, but after all her heart is set out for good, and somehow I really relate to her (which I suppose says a lot on my part).

She wants so badly to be 'good' and to do the morally 'right' thing (i.e. sticking with Mitya) and yet always seems to mess up. She has normal intentions but carry them out very misguidedly (the scene with Grushenka). At the same time she can also be very kind-hearted (giving that money to Captain Snegiryov), though that can be attributed to her want for martyrdom, but only in part I think. She actively offers to make amends and help Mitya escape after the whole court drama, and also withheld from questioning him about all that money he lost.

And she sacrificed so much of her own reputation by 1) making it look as though she came up with the idea to prostitute herself for the money during the trial instead of making Mitya look bad 2) and then proceeding to defend Ivan which would inevitably cause gossip and 3) keeping Ivan at her house so that he can recover, which supposedly should be considered very improper at the time. There's also the small detail that she paid for Ilyusha's funeral. Of course, a lot of all these good deeds could be attributed to personal reasons and her pride and whatnot, but I refuse to believe that it's the sole reason!

And then there's this quote:

“Love is gone, Mitya!” Katya began again, “but what is gone is painfully dear to me. Know that, for all eternity. But now, for one minute, let it be as it might have been,” she prattled with a twisted smile, again looking joyfully into his eyes. “You now love another, I love another, but still I shall love you eternally, and you me, did you know that? Love me, do you hear, love me all your life!” she exclaimed with some sort of almost threatening tremor in her voice.

And I'm sure she tormented herself so much after the trial ordeal. Like she probably thinks she's the worse person in the world after that, and probably cried for too long, and

In short, I love my deeply flawed, constantly messing up, but also very kind girl. Just a proud young society lady who so desperately wants to do everything right.

[ladiesdrinkpurealcohol]

"My child is fine"

Your child finds comfort in Dostoyevsky's books

[ghostisredacted]

just saw someone say "a fandom is small, so like only 1-3 fics posted per day" . you wouldnt survive a day in the place where im from

[rzhe]

[gazpachito95]

After seeing @tiredandanxiouschaos' post on the Alyosha-inspired song by the Polish band Metro, I had to go through the rabbit hole of looking for all the Brothers Karamazov inspired songs that I could find.

Here is what I got (including the song by Metro):

1. Metro - Hej, Aloszka

"In the text I'm reffering to one of the Karamazov brothers, Alosza, from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's book. It's a song about naivety, hope, the role of widely understood relation with God, transcendency, religion. In the midst of all the degeneracy shown by Dostoyevsky, Alosza is still certain that goodness (/kindness) will triumph. I'm also using the titular Aloszka to confront my own beliefs regarding the world, which are being subjected to constant revision" - says the text's author and vocalist, Aleksander Zajdel. [taken from one of the youtube comments under the song]. Check @tiredandanxiouschaos' post for the translation!]

2. The Used - The Brothers Karamazov

The song could be interpreted as sung by Mitya or by Ivan. It's about how they hate their father but also hate the fact that they can recognize some of their father's traits in themselves and how they are afraid to end up becoming someone like him.

3. The Slackers - Peculiar

Mitya's story sung from the POV of Mitya.

4. Susanne Sundfør - Alyosha

To be fair, it's possible that this song was not explicitly written about Alyosha from TBK, but about the singer/songwriter's husband (who has a different name). Still, I decided to include the song because I feel like the singer chose the name Alyosha as a placeholder for her husband's name because the lyrics also fit the character so so well. It could be loosely interpreted as sung by Gruschenka when Alyosha comes to visit her for the first time and she is shocked by his kindness and the fact that he treats her like a human being worthy of respect and compassion.

Let me know if you know of any other TBK songs! :)

[tolstayas]

i screen-printed this t-shirt for myself probably around 2016-2017 using a design i printed out from tumblr. does anyone remember this or know who made the design? i thought i remembered who it was but i was wrong!

[tolstayas]

thank you so much to @tomirida (via @kutyozh) for the source! turns out it's a new yorker cartoon by tom toro lol

[falloutnewnobody]

marya k is such an iconic character to me. she was taking care of her dying mother and boyfriend at the same time. she was dirt poor but refused to sell any of her fancy dresses, and wore those fancy dresses all the damn time. she was in love with the one guy Mr "and love them you shall" didnt gaf about. she lived on fyodor karamazov's property. pavel cooked for her in the first half and she cooked for him in the second. her boyfriend was gay. some guy who interrupted her date like 2 months prior, told her that her bf killed himself and immedietly fucked off. her mother and the love of her life died within a month of each other and that's the last we hear of her ever. dostoevsky didnt give a fuck about her. rich people kept breaking into her house to have secret conversations with her dying boyfriend. her gay boyfriend killed her landlord. she had freckles.

[today-till-tomorrow]

making myself sick thinking about the brothers karamazov

[karamazovposting]

Don't worry the day I'll stop ivanposting is the day I die

[lesbianraskolnikov]

Grushenka what do we think

[tiredandanxiouschaos]

Forgot to mention this banger of a song about Alyosha Karamazov. Is this niche yet.

My best attempt at translating the lyrics. It was tough, apologies for any mistakes

[Verse 1]

Hey, Alyoshka, don't cry so much

The world betrayed you, didn't give you much, I know

But don't tear the hair out of your head, sunshine

Your suffering heart doesn't come in price today, oh no

[Verse 2]

Hey, Alyoshka, someday it will be beautiful

Land will loom over the horizont, your home

But your eyes are so tired already

Allow the fools to weep and you'll find out that

[Chorus]

Everybody loves, though no one knows how

Everybody's silent, when they feel fear

With God on the lips, as the world ends

Hey, Alyoshka, you don't have a chance against them!

[Verse 3]

Hey, Alyoshka, don't look at them

Sticky fingers nowadays accept only anger and death

Although that's not how you agreed with Him (assuming capital H)

Allow the fools to go astray, because He knows well that

[Chorus]

Everybody loves, though no one knows how

Everybody's silent, when they feel fear

With God on the lips, as the world ends

Hey, Alyoshka, you don't have a chance against them!

[Verse 4]

You ask, even though you know

You'll arrive where you want

And the queen of the night

Will write you a poem

You ask, even though you know

You'll arrive where you want

Oh, queen of the night…

Hey, Alyoshka! Don't cry! Because

[Chorus]

Everybody loves, though no one knows how

Everybody's silent, when they feel fear

With God on the lips, as the world ends

Hey, Alyoshka, you don't have a chance (chance! chance! chance! chance!) against them!

(Excluded a bunch of "ooooh"s)

[karamazovposting]

Ah I missed posting long and thoughtful posts, I should start doing that again

[karamazovposting]

Art movements I associate with the four brothers

This post by @butchraskolnikov reminded me of this old thing that's been sitting in my drafts since 2024 but that I never posted (many such cases) because I thought it was too specific and nobody would have been interested but today, because of that post, I decided the time has finally come (so thank you butchraskolnikov!). Here it is.

Everything under the cut because this is going to be a long post

Dmitri: Mannerism

At first for Dmitri I was going to go with Rococo, the iconic, exuberant, exaggerated and overdramatic final expression of the Baroque style (which, let's be honest, there's really no need for me to describe, you all have seen it before), with a particular focus on Russian Rococo, but I felt like there was something not quite fitting about it, like something was missing. Then I took one small metaphorical step back in time to Mannerism, which is basically Baroque's predecessor. In my opinion Mannerism possesses exactly what I felt was missing in Rococo: softness. Rococo is too much in a way that could fit Dmitri's character on a surface level, and while Mannerism and Baroque/Rococo do share many similarities such as exaggeration, asymmetry and instability, Mannerism possesses a softer and less artificial quality to it that I thought was just perfect for our Mitya. It was born from a time of artistic crisis, resulting in precariously balanced compositions, irrational and distorted settings, deliberately disproportionate, deformed and elongated human figures, encompassing the aura of grandeur of Michelangelo's works but with that added tint of chaos and unrecognizability that will make me love and defend this movement from people who just don't want to see past the surface (sounds familiar?) until the day I die. The use of darkness and light for dramatic effect was a defining characteristic of Mannerist art, which was at first positively accepted only for the public opinion to switch and start regarding it in a negative light, resulting in harsh criticism back in the day and sometimes mockery in our contemporary times; all of this reminds me of Mitya's character and his story.

Ivan: Dadaism

I won't lie, Dada is my absolute favorite art movement and both my own art and the way I look at and navigate the world have been influenced by it, and while Ivan is my favorite character, that's not the reason why I assigned this movement to him. Dada was the international avant-garde movement of the intellectuals, the poets and the leftists, who reunited in the iconic Cabaret Voltaire to recite poetry, play music, do theater improv and talk about politics. Despite its short lifespan Dada still manages to raise a few eyebrows and many questions and to inspire people (not only me, go watch the music video for Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out) to this day, over a century later, due to its strong ties to conceptual art and deliberately provocative and irreverent nature and ideology: chaos and irrationality for chaos and irrationality's sake. Anti-war, anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist, anti-bourgeois and anti-art, Dada was a response to the climate of destruction caused by the outbreak of World War I and it tried to reflect into human perception and the chaotic nature of society, going against the notion expressed by Romanticism and later Positivism that everything had a purpose and was destined to eventually fall into place by converging into a final good. It was described by contemporaries as destructive, by art historians as a reaction to what the artists saw as an insane spectacle of collective homicide (and I mean, were they wrong?) and by the artists themselves as an act of sacrilege, and I think it fits Ivan and the way I've seen his character being discussed perfectly, to the point I can cite the specific passages of TBK that connect with everything I said here.

Alyosha: Impressionism

For Alyosha I could've gone with any Christian art movement, such as Gothic trying to be as close as possible to God up above through high towers, or Romanesque with its vibrant colors, or even the Paleochristian and Byzantine art that my classmates and I used to make fun of and that I learned to love as I grew, which I think would have been more fitting than the aforementioned other two movements, but in life I never go for the easy routes. I don't relate to or understand Alyosha that much so it was a little hard for me to think of any movement for him, but when I think of him the first thing that comes to mind is the dreamlike atmosphere of Cana of Galilee (one of my favorite chapters), which I could have associated to Gothic and Romanesque stained glass windows for example, but I knew that if I thought a little harder I would find something better. Now, this is definitely a looser connection compared to the others I made, but in my mind it's so clear and it makes so much sense that I can picture it almost synesthetically: Impressionism. This one is less about the context and more about the art itself: Impressionist paintings have a dreamlike quality to them, are focused on human sensation, perception and experience, and portray mundane scenes, natural settings and candid subjects, all things that remind me of Alyosha and his connection to humanity. Additionally, the bright yet delicate colors and the spontaneousness of the execution make the paintings palpitate with life, which I associate with youth. I don't know, I just feel like Alyosha wouldn't look out of place in an Impressionist painting.

Pavel: Brutalism

And I'm done! If you've made it this far, thank you.

Another movement that I absolutely love, Brutalism was and still is quite divisive and polarising (just like a certain someone). Born in opposition to the nostalgia of 1940s architecture and as part of the post-World War II era reconstruction project, its main purpose was to create equality both on a practical level (as Brutalist designs became quite popular for social housing and public facilities such as libraries) and on an ideological level (as the concrete emphasized equality), but as we all know it's been associated with poverty and urban decay and has been given other negative connotations mostly due to its diffusion in socialist Eastern Europe, which is quite xenophobic in my opinion considering Brutalism actually originated in the United Kingdom (but the UK is a western capitalist country, and as we all know there's no poverty and decay under capitalism and there is absolutely no global recession that's been going on since I was born). Personally I think Brutalism is a misunderstood and heavily politicized movement (even those who don't think art is political react with vitriol at the sight of the Evil Brutalist Buildings, and it's not uncommon for people to call for their demolition) and this, in addition to being born out of something horrific, the association with ugliness, the aforementioned relationship with poverty and class struggle and the hatred it's subjected to because of it, makes it a perfect fit for Pavel to me.

[vancruejovi]

[123lostgirl]

am i too avoidant or was ivan so real when he said 'and do you know she attracts me awfully even now, yet how easy it is to leave her' and 'i believe it’s always best to get to know people just before leaving them'